FSE

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Survival is the mother of invention. With resources in the wastelands extremely scare. Survivors tend to horde everything they can find. Creating weight and bulk problems. Because of this, crafty survivors often come up with ingenious ways of transporting both themselves and their gear.

The curtains that covered the window looking out over the sterilized landscape didn't help us much the next morning when the sun decided to emerge from behind the sand. The blindingly white rays of pure light shoved the curtains aside as they flooded the room like a brand new LED bulb, waking all three of us up. Looking outside, there was frost on the window. The room was warm, thanks to the space heater that had been chugging all night, but there was no doubt we were in for another chiller.

"Frost on the window", Eirren sighed snuggling up next to me, "great. Gonna be another cold one."

"I don't mind the cold so much", I said quietly. I put my arm around her, "I'm certain I could say something cheeky to tell you how our love could defeat the cold and all that. But sadly I don't have anything like that to say, so a kiss will have to do."

Eirren giggled, "that's more than fine by me."

And so we did. I wouldn't have minded if it had lasted for the rest of my life, but all good things come to an end. This good thing came to an end when Nero woke up and drove himself in between us like a wedge.

"It's cold outside", He said starring at the head of the bed, "and it's cold in here too."

"It's not cold in here", Eirren smiled giving Nero a little kiss.

"It is too", he objected, "It's coming in from under the door, you couldn't feel it because you get blankets."

I sat up, and yeah, I could feel the draft he was talking about. I laid back down, pulling the covers up to my neck.

"Let's just stay here for a while", I suggested, "either that or until Nat comes to wake us up. What time is it?"

Eirren rolled over to look at the clock she'd left on her night stand, "6:23 in the morning."

"Too early", Nero said curling against me and closing his eyes. It didn't take him long to fall back to sleep, nor did Eirren waste anytime following him. I tried follow them too, and for a while I was successful, but I woke up again at seven AM. My son and mate were still out cold, but there wasn't anyway I was getting back there till night fall. I slid out of bed as quietly as I could, trying not to disturb them. I slipped into what I'd left out of the wash for this morning and quietly exited the room. Across the hall, I was rather surprised to find both the dryer and the washer going, both on hour cycles. My and Eirren's things were in the dryer and Nat's rad suit was in the washer. There was a box of scouring powder, baking soda and concentrated bleach sitting on top of the machine, how powerful the dirt on that suit must be. Judging by the sounds, or lack thereof, in the washer, Nat had taken all of the metal pieces off of her suit, though they weren't here. I left the laundry room, quietly shutting the door behind me. I walked down the hallway to Khen's shop, figuring he wasn't there as the door was locked. I walked down the stairs, finding the smell of breakfast meats hanging in the air. Water filling my mouth and stomach rumbling, I went to the kitchen, where I found Nat at the stove, strangely. She was wearing jeans, her normal boots and a blue T-Shirt. She also had bandages wrapped tightly around what I could see of her neck and arms and fingerless gloves that it wouldn't be too far fetched to assume were helping in keeping the wrapping on her paws in place. The swelling in her face and ears didn't look any better, in fact, they may have actually gotten worse, though I couldn't tell. The glow of the Corium lodged in her body was visible through her clothes as well. The patterns that they made reminded me slightly of the movie Tron.

"Oh you're awake", Nat said, "I put your guys' stuff in the dryer to make room for my Environment suit."

"I saw", I said sitting at the table, "Why are you cooking instead of James?"

"They took off at four AM this morning", Nat said, "surprised you didn't hear all of the racket that Khen's 1300 horse RX-7 caused."

"1300 horses?", I asked, "I'll be that things a bitch to find parts for. What are you cooking?"

"Some eggs and bacon that James left me", Nat said, "I don't know if you like eggs or not, but this'll probably be the last fresh food we have...forever. So I suggest you eat it."

"Never really eaten a whole lot of eggs. Can't even say if I really like the taste or not. One Christmas morning I tried to swallow one whole. Didn't work out too well."

"Why the hell would you try to swallow a whole egg?", Nat asked, "that's retarded and you could have choked."

I shrugged, "I'd watched an old movie. The main character Homer could eat an egg in one bite, figured I'd try it."

Nat shook her head, "I'll never understand males. I really won't."

I grinned, though I didn't press the conversation further. At around eight AM, Eirren and Nero joined us, drawn by the smell of Nat's cooking. Eirren sat beside me, while Nero found a way to climb up onto the table, where he lay down, waiting for the food to come to him.

"Did Khen and James' take off already?", Eirren asked.

"Left at four this morning", Nat said spooning food onto some plates, "surprised Khen's car didn't wake you up."

"Heavy sleeper I guess", Eirren shrugged, "always did take a lot to wake up. By the way did you put your suit in the wash?"

"Yeah", Nat said, "I moved your guy's stuff to the dryer."

"Thanks", Eirren smiled, "saved me the trouble. You seem a lot happier than you did two days ago."

"I'd forgotten just how much getting, well some what clean", Nat smiled, "can do for you. I'll never be able to go around without either my suit or bandages ever again unless I want sheets of skin to peel off my back, but you know what? I don't care. I'm just happy I don't have to pass another night in the Fog."

"Speaking of sleep", I mentioned as we filled our plates with the food, portioning it till it was all gone, "two nights ago, when we were holed up in that house. You were sleeping up against the door, or at least, you turned the optics in your helmet off. You seemed like you were out cold, but you told me in the Fog you can't sleep any more."

"Yeah", Nat said, "I can close my eyes and rest, but I was wide awake all night that night. I'm not sure how much of it is my suit and how much of it is my mutation, because last night I got closer to actual sleep than I have since Medusa cursed me, but still."

"That's brutal sister", Eirren sighed, "I got up at 2 in the morning to take care of some business and I was jealous that you seemed to be sleeping so well just up against that door."

"I won't lie, I was very comfortable", Nat smiled, "but no, I was wide awake."

"That's gotta suck", I sighed sitting down, "suffering 24/7 for three years inside a radioactive fog, and aware and awake for every minute of it."

"Yeah my life sucks", Nat shrugged shoveling a spoon full of egg into her maw, "but all of our lives suck, some just suck more than others."

"I'd drink to that if I had a bottle of Scotch", Eirren said.

"I could go for some Scotch myself", I said, "haven't found any since I left home. Nat, this is the part where you surprise us all and pull one from thin air."

Nat shook her head, "if only. This isn't a story book Arien, it's the real world."

"Yeah well, sometimes it feels like a story", Eirren said, "what with all of the good luck we have."

"Luck doesn't last", I shrugged, "it never does. Like I said last night, feel like the well's run dry. We'll be spending some nights on sand and makeshift shelters for a while I feel like."

"I don't mind camping", Eirren said.

"Me either", Nat said, "at least it'll be cold outside."

"That seems more like a negative, to me at least", Eirren said.

"Think of the cold as an AC", I shrugged, "it goes from bad to not so bad pretty quickly."

"I suppose that's one way to look at it", Eirren said.

We didn't do a lot of talking after we sat down. We ate quickly, cleaned up for the next fur that may come along and then returned to our rooms. Eirren and I put our packs back together, cleaned our guns and while we were loading up Nat showed up. She was back in her Environment suit, though her jacket was open. She'd removed the bandages, and she had her helmet in her hands. The rifle that hung at her side was a Sierra Outdoor Company AR-20 that sported a Muller Quick Shot 1/33x red dot sight, Surefire 6P flashlight, Magpul furniture and a Daniel Defense Quad rail. The weapon was professionally done in woodland camo with blue, white and grey instead of green, black and brown and with matte paint instead of gloss or even semi-gloss. It wouldn't reflect light, though that was hardly a concern in the desert. Visibility was high enough that there wasn't any way you could move without being visible for miles.

"No flash surpressor?", I asked, "not even a threaded barrel?

"Never really felt the need for either", Nat shrugged, "you guys about ready to get on outta here?"

"Almost", I said stowing my last few pieces of gear in my pack, "what about you Eirren, you got everything?"

"Yeah, and there's one thing I wanna check before we clear out of here."

"What's that?", I asked zipping up my jacket, picking up my vest and sitting it on my shoulders.

"The door to Khen's shop is locked, can't bring myself to stop wondering why."

"He didn't leave behind even a bit of dust", Nat laughed, "there's no way."

"Hell can't hurt to look", Eirren said, "who knows, maybe he did leave us something."

"Whose gonna carry it if he did?", Nat asked, "You and Arien both have rifles and shotguns, meanwhile I've got my rifle and the EX-2."

"Do you have a handgun?", Eirren asked.

"A little snub nosed .38 in my web gear", Nat said, "I keep it near by in case something grabs me, and there's the .45-70 Government revolver that would snap my slowly decaying wrist, but no, I don't have a full sized pistol."

"Well here's hoping he left us just that", Eirren said, "and if not, you can take one from the nearest corpse."

"Charming", Nat shook her head, "she always like this?"

"Always", I grunted, hefting my pack to my shoulder, "oh my goodness, this thing's heavy. But you know, part of the reason I fell in love in the first place."

Eirren grabbed the rest of her gear and followed Nat out of the room. I tailed them down the hall, arriving at Khen's shop door, Eirren checked her new shotgun, replacing the dragon's breath with a slug round.

"Only one I got", She said putting it against the door knob.

"Maybe not waste it then?", I said moving her aside. I stepped back to the wall and threw myself at the door, ripping the metal piece that the bolt in the knob set into clean out of the wall and the door opened with ease. Nat was, well, mostly correct. The room was spotless, except for one table. This table had a note and some, rather makeshift, but well put together looking suppressors on it. The note read.

"Luck is dry...now. Hope you guys can make some use out of these cans"-Khen

"Well I can't pretend I'm not happy to see these", I said picking up one of the cans. It was set up for 9mm pistols, would probably fit either my or Eirren's handgun. Though with the fact that the thread protector on my Sig was screwed on tight enough that whoever had it probably had the Bicep of a Greek demigod, I figured Eirren would be getting it.

"These cans look hand made", Eirren said picking one of them up, "they're nice, but no doubt hand made.

"Doesn't bother me at all", I said loosening the brake on my AR with my multitool. After some work, I tried attaching the suppressor, finding it fit well and tightened snugly against the back of the threading, "fit's and looks good, but how well does it shoot?"

"That is the question", Eirren shrugged attaching the remaining cans to her AK and M9.

"Do we waste the ammo in testing them?", I asked.

"Part of me wants to, but the majority of me says no", Eirren responded.

"My thoughts exactly", I shrugged, "however, it's better to use three or four rounds testing them now, then to try to sneak through a bandit camp and find they do nothing, or just blow up our guns because they do too much."

"That's a valid point", Nat commented.

We cleared out of the building, got the gate open and left it open behind us. I took my rifle off safe and sighed, lifting it to my shoulders, remembering the last time I'd had an accident with it, as the steel casing hanging off my handrail constantly reminded me.

"Here we go", I said looking away from the gun, "don't hurt me too bad."

I gritted my teeth and started to squeeze the trigger, only to stop and lower it.

"No I'm not gonna", I began to turn around, putting my rifle on safe. Half way through my spin, I put it back on Semi and pointed it down range, groaning at the probable banana peeled barrel and loss of what I could at this point consider a friend. I gritted my teeth and tightly shut my eyes, folding both my ears flat against my head as I depressed the trigger. The explosion and totaled rifle I was sure was coming, never came. In fact, the surpressor did an out right amazing job. It was still kinda loud, but it was quiet enough that someone inside a building with doors and windows shut probably wouldn't hear it, and if they did it wouldn't be that noticeable.

"Well that works", Eirren said trying her's out. Her AK made a quieter sound, but it was deeper and more noticeable than my AR, at least I thought so. Nat said she felt that they were about the same, but nonetheless, they worked and could be immensely useful in the weeks, maybe months to come. Once testing of the surpressor was complete, we returned to the road. Eirren had her maps out and was planing our route and I was on point, Nero riding on my pack and Nat bringing up the rear, occasionally spinning around to check our six. The sun wasn't being kind to us, and it hurt my eyes even though my glasses were rather dark. I could use some polarized lenses, but the odds of finding that were rather slim. Though it was rather cold outside, there was a light breeze blowing and the sky was clear. The air was fresh too, or at least it felt that way and it seemed like no matter where I went, it was the same shit different day. Just endless amounts of sand, dirt and a landscape that had been so thoroughly sanitized and washed that it couldn't support so much as a single weed even if it grew out of a dead body. Despite that fact, the further we moved away from Medusa, the more the landscape changed. Still, the fine, bright tan and sometimes white sand moved loosely under foot with the feeling that would give a mountaineer a heart attack, but now, it began to mix with hardpacked and lose dirt containing pieces of plant matter in various sizes and stages of decay. Dead shrubbery, matted underbrush and trees stripped of bark and leaves formed what could have once maybe been a woods were up on a very small cliff just to the right of the road, and off in the distance there was a tree line that maybe at some point pretty nice to look at, but now it just looked like dead sticks.

"The scenery reminds me of Fallout 4", Nat commented.

"Reminds me of the woods behind my grandma's house", I said climbing up onto the small cliff. I hiked aways inland and surveyed the area. Growing up, I'd always come to associate wooded areas like this with finding all kinds of cool junk that people had left behind from years past. My brother's and I were a bunch of little vultures growing up, always picking up trash and finding cool things to do with it. Not even because we needed to to have something to play with, but just because we liked doing it. One time we even built a huge Fallout 3 inspired fort in our side yard, complete with a raised platform with a chair on it, lots of random trash and everything.

"Man these woods bring back some memories", I commented, continuing to hike along the edge of the cliff face, staying where the girls could still see me.

"What are you on about?", Nat asked.

I laughed, "back when I was a cub, my brothers and I were a bunch of scaly little vultures. We were constantly bringing cans, glass bottles, scrap metal and random shit we pulled out of fur's trashcans back home and thinking of fun things to do with it. And not because we were poor and needed stuff to play with, but just because playing with trash was infinitely more fun than it was to play with actual toys. Drove my Dad up the fucking wall."

Eirren giggled, "I can relate. What's the best thing you ever did with your junk?"

"The forts, easily. There was a tree that fell in our side yard and was propped up by an old chain link fence that hadn't been completely crushed, and it was a perfect support beam for the coolest Fallout inspired creation I've ever done. I just wish my dad hadn't torn it down and sold all of my scrap. Pissed us off."

Nat laughed, "Man I'm glad I don't have kids."

"Actually, it's probably a good thing you don't", Eirren said glancing towards Nero, who'd run aways ahead, "the Wastelands aren't any place for them. And even if you had any pre war..."

There was a slight pause. Neither of the girls said anything, then Nat replied.

"Way to kill the mood Eirren", Nat sighed, "now I can't stop thinking about puppies screaming for me and Ben while skin get's pulled off their bones by Medusa's fire."

Eirren shook her head, "sorry", she said quietly.

Nat stopped where she was, raising her paw like she was going to wipe her eyes, stopped for a few seconds when she realized she had her helmet on, but then did it any way. She started glancing around, like she was hearing something, then covered her ears.

"Please just stop", she begged, "Eirren why did you have to bring that up!?"

I had a good feeling I knew what was happening. I came down from my perch atop the small hill and walked over to Nat. She'd sat down, putting her head in her paws, I could her her crying underneath the helmet. I crouched down beside her and put my paw on her back. I could feel how tense she was through the suit and after some time, she looked up and took a deep breath, looking down at Nero, who'd now rejoined us.

"Why are you said Aunt Nat?", Nero asked curiously.

Nat weakly laughed and stood up, "just thinking about some stuff I'd rather not. That's all, I'm okay."

Nero smiled and ran back out in front of us. Nat chased after him and the two of them started playing tag. Eirren turned to me.

"Arien...do you think that Nat and Ben..."

I knew where she was going, but I raised my hand, stopping her.

"Almost certainly, but, she'll tell us when she's ready. I feel like she's tried to forget it for more reasons than one."

"Maybe", Eirren sighed, "I didn't know...."

"Of course you didn't", I said, "neither did I. You had no way of knowing."

"So how could you tell?", Eirren asked.

"I've seen my fair share of war and EMS movies", I shrugged, "I heard what she said about Medusa, and when she put her paws over her ears I kind of put one and two together."

"Makes sense I suppose", Eirren said through a long sigh. She clearly felt guilty about provoking something Nat had tried hard to keep buried. I put my arm around her, we started walking again.

"Stop worrying yourself love", I said, "we have enough to worry about without adding what might make someone else cry for a few seconds to the list. We've all got our demons."

Eirren didn't answer me after that. The two of us walked in silence for a long while, keeping a close eye on the surrounding area for signs of mutants, bandits, rock slides, weak trees, and basically anything that could fall on our head without warning. Nat and Nero were passing the time by playing tag and various outdoor games that didn't require any props or making too much noise. I was worried about keeping quiet so as not to attract attention, and in addition to that, I found the countryside super peaceful. There was wind super high up, producing the kind of noise that gives you that same feeling as when you stand underneath the street lamp that doesn't work in the parking lot of your local gas station and look up in the sky. That feeling that you're standing atop a high building, or even flying. It's hard to describe, but I know you've felt it and I know you know what I'm talking about.

During the walk through the Vermont country side, my attention was firmly fixated on the ditches and into the surrounding woods. I was keeping an eye out for signs of bandits, but I was also looking for junk. Soda bottles, metal beer bottles, glass bottles, any bottles, knives, pieces of cloth, scrap metal, string, chain, rope, whatever I could find that might come in remotely handy sometime down the line. The ditches, however, were clean minus some small pieces of beer cans that looked like they'd been cut up by a large mower at some point.

"Hey Eirren", I said, "where exactly does the route for today take us?"

"We keep following Highway 30 until we hit the State Route 4 interchange, from there we follow that South until we hit New York, though I think we can only go as far as clearing Whitefall before sun down. I think sleeping in the city is a bad idea."

"Why is that?", Nat asked.

"Do you know what a Rabid is?", I asked climbing out of a ditch.

She shook her head, "never heard of it."

"Mean animals", Nero said, "baaadd, nasty. They like to eat you."

Nat looked to me.

"That was actually a pretty sound observation", I shrugged, "after the bombs fell a bunch of survivors contracted Rabies on some hard steroids. They're easy to spot, furless, hairless, dis-colored yellow skin, a bunch of veins and arteries showing and they posses a remarkable ability to travel on all fours, especially among Bi-Peds. Some of them have even kept it together enough to operate firearms and understand speech, though they can't do anything with these tools other than kill other furs for dinner."

"Sounds like an even worse time than I have", Nat sighed.

"Turning Rabid is my worst fear", Eirren said.

"How does the virus transfer?", Nat asked.

"Direct contact", I said, "usually by a bite, but if you get splattered with fluids by some other means that can do it too. They're not zombies, so they know enough to clean and care for their teeth, hell some Rabids have better teeth than I do."

"I'm not worried", Nat said, "they get close enough I can just unclasp my helmet and fry them."

"Arien and I also found that pipe and sharp objects can do some good work against them", Eirren said, "the day before we left Canada, Arien and I looted someone's stash that was festering with them. He disemboweled a few of them before the smartest of the group managed to disarm him and force a one on one fight. It was a good time."

"Killing bad guys is always fun", Nat shrugged.

The day wound on with a bunch of random conversations as we hiked through the strange, desert-woods hybrid environment of Vermont Backroads. What would have made things even more enjoyable would have been a front wheel drive car with a high ass redline and a manual transmission, for a few reasons, but mainly so we wouldn't have to carry anything. Of course, not having to carry anything was about to change. About the time that we cleared Hubbardton, which had been reduced more or less to rubble, but of course, that didn't mean something of value wasn't hidden away underneath it. We stopped to search the town, spending a good hour or so digging through the piles of blasted wood and metal, turning up a few cuts on tails and sharp pieces of metal punching through the soles of boots, but nothing even remotely useful.

"What I'd give for a bottle of scotch", Eirren mused when we returned to the road, "or even a wagon to carry our packs in."

"What would be the point of that?", Nat asked, "seems like it would be easy to steal."

"Yeah, but think about it. Not having to carry everything we own on our bodies, just pulling everything around, it would save us a lot of energy and we could go further each day."

"Going further each day isn't a given", I said, "though it'd be hard to argue against not having to lug everything around."

"Wagon or not", Nat said, "my situation doesn't change very much."

"You don't need the suit anymore do you?", Nero asked, "we're all immune."

"I need a high level of radiation in my body to function properly buddy", Nat said letting Nero ride on her shoulders, "I've got a bunch of metal inside of me that needs to stay liquid, stay hot. If it cools off it'll kill me and the suit keeps all of the radiation that comes off of that liquid metal inside of me, inside, thus keeping the metal liquid and super hot."

"I wanna throw liquid metal at a bandit and watch him dance", Nero laughed, "I think it would be fun."

"That's some dark stuff buddy", Nat commented.

"Never mind the fact that liquid metal is too hot to hold even for us dragons", I noted, "I was helping my old man make some bullet castings one day and someone working above us accidentally knocked an open bottle of water off of his platform. I'll never forget that day, I went to bed that night knowing what the bones in my arm looked like."

"Brutal", Eirren noted, "hey guys, I got one. What if you could rewind time to one week before the bombs fell and give one piece of advice to your pre-war self, what would it be?"

"Better stock up on Pizza MRE's", I said, "long trip ahead."

"Mine would be to load up on .223 and stop putting off buying that vest", Eirren said, "what about you Nat?"

"I would make sure that I went on Ben's business trip with him", Nat said, "because fuck Medusa."

"Wishing more and more I had a bottle of Scotch", I smiled, "what about you buddy? What advice would you give yourself?"

"Stop being blind", Nero laughed, "you'll smash your head into less things."

I couldn't help but laugh at that. After some more hours walking, I saw the sign, "welcome to New York."

'Welcome to the nanny state", I laughed looking up at the sky, the sun was beginning to go down, "let's find a place and make camp for the night."

The girls agreed, though Nero was still hyper and wanted to keep going. We were too close to the city to enter and clear by sundown, and when I explained to him it wasn't going to happen, he just laid down in the road and refused to move. Nat said she'd stay behind and watch him while Eirren and I set up camp, and set up camp we did. We found a cluster of four trees that were very close together and went from there. She went off to gather fire wood, while I gathered a bunch of smaller sticks and branches to try something that I'd always wanted to do. I stuck a stick about four feet long a foot in the ground half way between three of the four trees, the one facing the road, one facing where we'd come from and one facing where we'd be going in the morning. I then weaved the other sticks and branches that I'd gathered between the trees and the sticks and the result was a rather sturdy wooden wall. I mean, it'd still fall to even the most remotely determined bandit or critter, but it would work to keep the wind away. Earlier today, I'd scavenged a tarp from one of the ruined houses in Hubbardton, and since it would be too bulky to keep with us, I secured it to the roof of our shelter and used the other half of it to make a door, where it would likely stay unless someone else was willing to carry it. Nat set up a thick piece of plastic on the dirt and on top of that we put all of our bedrolls and blankets. The shelter was more than large enough for the three of us, and assuming that nothing attacked us, it would be a pleasant stay. Eirren came back with fire wood, enough to last the night I'd say. We built a nice fire and sat around it for a good few hours. We ate dinner, told stories and watched the sunset, it was a good time. We had to clear the city tomorrow, so we bedded down once the sun had set. The girls and Nero were quick to find sleep, but me not so much. I lay awake for a while, listening to what was going on around me. I had a feeling tomorrow was gonna be a long day.